Alone
by 427-67Impala
Summary: Takes place immediately after 7.23. Dean is on his own, with just his handgun and countless hungry monsters for company, and it takes about five seconds for everything to go to hell. He just has to survive long enough for Sam to get him out. Language, limp!Dean (and a Hell-based fever dream). Rated M just to be safe.
1. Chapter 1

_Title:_ Alone  
_Author:_ 427-67Impala  
_Rating:_ M  
_Warnings:_ Spoilers for S7 finale, limp!Dean, language.  
_Word count:_ 8,860  
_Setting:_ Immediately after 7.23

_Summary:_ Dean is on his own in Purgatory, with just his handgun and countless hungry monsters for company, and it takes about five seconds for everything to go to hell.

_A/N:_ I was immediately struck by the similarities between the finales of S7 and S3 - Sam in the real world, totally alone, while Dean is stuck in a different dimension with monsters. I've wanted to write some 'Dean in Hell' for a while, and it all just coalesced as I was making pancakes late on Sunday morning. :)

As we know, Sam and Dean belong to Kripke & co. - I'm just borrowing their toys...

* * *

Chapter 1

There was a rustle of wings, and Cas was just _gone_.

"Cas?" Dean turned around, but there was nothing but empty air where the angel had been standing two seconds earlier.

It was at this point that Dean would usually curse and complain about always having to save his own ass. As it was, the thought didn't even cross his mind - his brain was preoccupied with the fact he was now alone in Purgatory. On his own with the essence of every monster, ever. The monsters that had survived by eating the _other _monsters…

He looked around him, slowly. It was cold out here, but the shiver of fear that crawled down his spine like icy spiders had nothing to do with the temperature. _No sudden moves, Dean,_ he told himself, eyes searching the forest of skeletal trees for the natives.

They were there. He saw them moving in the shadows, the yellowish not-light that bled through the clouds showing him flashes of bright red eyes and glistening teeth. Leaves rustled on the ground under countless feet, and bodies scraped against dead twigs and desiccated foliage in all directions. Something howled mournfully in the distance.

Dean did his best impersonation of a tree as he watched them, circling him - dark shapes just out of view in the trees around the clearing. He heard unsettling little chittering noises from the vicious black spines of branches above and around him, and clenched his jaw. He tried not to flinch while he imagined hungry things dropping down at him from the trees and ripping his face off.

_Stay cool, Dean._

Even as he tried to control his breathing and not _look_ like the prey animal he obviously was, Dean knew it was pointless. It's not like they didn't know he was there. Even worse, a lot of them probably even knew who he was. That was a downright scary thought; there were a lot of things running around Purgatory that would literally _kill _to settle up with a Winchester.

All was calm for maybe five seconds while Dean and the monsters sized each other up, and it was the longest five seconds of his life.

He was just starting to reach slowly into his jacket for his gun when the uneasy silence was broken by a bloodcurdling, inhuman yowl from the woods on his left. Dean's head snapped around to see one of those anonymous shadows leap out of the trees, all snapping teeth and raking claws, screaming at him as it sailed through the air.

He threw himself to the ground with a yelp of surprise, getting a faceful of half-rotted leaves and God knows what else as the creature - something vaguely resembling a big mountain lion with dark skin and too-long limbs - slashed at the air where he'd been standing a second before.

It landed on its feet, catlike, and spun to face the eldest Winchester with a grating shriek of a growl that sounded more like a circular saw than an animal. Dean scrabbled back over the decaying leaf litter on his backside, eyes locked on the creature, trying to put a little distance between them. His right hand reached into his jacket as he went, searching desperately for his gun.

Now that he was face-to-face with the thing, Dean realised that his first impression wasn't entirely accurate. It might be about the same size as a mountain lion, and move like one, but that was where the similarity ended.

This thing was almost entirely hairless, save a few sparse patches of coarse, off-white hair on its chest and the tips of its ears and tail. It was covered in black/grey mottled skin that looked like dry leather, stretched tight over bones that poked out from under steel-cable muscles, which gave the creature a skeletal appearance even though it must have weighed nearly 250 pounds. There were six long toes on all four of its paw-like feet, and each ended in an evil looking two-inch, scythe-like claw.

Its eyes burned into Dean, blood-red sclera with yellow irises around a black slit of a pupil. Its wide, heavy skull was held low as it regarded him, its too-wide mouth open in a snarl and full of yellow teeth that looked like they came from a frigging _dinosaur_. He couldn't even guess at what flavour of monster it might have been back in the land of the living.

The cat-thing crouched and then sprang at him, eyes glittering with bloodlust, foaming at the mouth and ready to tear him to ribbons. Dean got the stainless steel Colt free of his jacket just as the creature's back feet left the ground, brought it up in front of him, and shot the mutant cougar twice through the roof of its open, snarling mouth while the thing was still in midair.

He continued the momentum of the draw and rolled to his left with a grunt of effort, getting out of the creature's flight path. He heard a heavy _thud_ on the ground behind him a second later, then a single rattling exhalation, and when he turned to look over his right shoulder he saw the cat-thing lying dead in the leaves with a ragged, bloody hole where the back of its skull had been. It had hit the ground chin-first, its muzzle ploughing a two-foot-long furrow in the forest floor before the creature's corpse finally came to a stop.

"Take that, Sylvester!" Dean gasped, enjoying the small victory as he pushed himself back into a sitting position. He couldn't help it - it always felt good to kill something that wanted to eat his face. He was under no illusions about his situation: he didn't have nearly enough bullets to even make a dent in the citizenry of Purgatory, but for a few seconds, that didn't matter. Now there was one less-

"Ow!"

Dean was snapped back to reality by a sharp, burning pain in his left hand, and he jerked it up out of the detritus with a yelp of shock. At the same time, he reflexively swung the butt of his Colt at the mangy little squirrel-like thing that had just bitten a chunk out of him. It ducked out of the way, impossibly fast, and hissed at him like a snake from between needle teeth before it shot off into a nearby tree.

Dean swore and scrambled back to his feet, Colt held ready in his right hand as he glanced down at the wound on his left. It was on the side of his hand, in the fleshy part near the base of his little finger. It was only about half an inch long and wasn't all that deep, but it still hurt and Dean winced a little as he braced his grip on the gun with the injured hand. A few drops of blood splattered on a rock by his feet.

There was another low, predatory growl from the trees on his right, and Dean spun to face the next nightmarish thing that wanted to try its luck. "Bring it on, ugly." he breathed, watching dark shapes darting around in only-slightly-darker shadows. He couldn't see anything well enough to know whether it was in fact ugly, but he figured it was a safe bet. None of these things seemed to be any prettier now than the forms they'd taken in the real world.

As he stood there, Colt grasped in steady hands and every sense on red-alert, Dean knew one thing for sure: he couldn't stay here, waiting for Cas. This clearing was too exposed, and there were too many things out there in the dark that wanted to take a bite out of him. Or worse. He'd been lucky to gank the cougar-thing, and he wasn't keen on a repeat performance. He had to go, and _now_.

Dean was taking a few quick glances around, trying to work out if there was such a thing as a _good_ direction to run, when one of those dark shapes made the decision for him. It flew out of the trees in a blur of shadows, and he didn't even get a good look at it before he instinctively ducked left and took off into the trees at a dead run. The thing screeched like a bird of prey and followed him - Dean heard it coming, even over his rapid breathing and his own heartbeat in his ears.

It soon became apparent that Dean was fighting a losing battle. The thing was gaining on him. The sound of its feet on the dry leaves and the sharp _pops_ of the branches and twigs it broke as it ran left him in no doubt. Oddly, it didn't run in a regular stride - there were quiet patches lasting a few seconds, where it only broke the odd branch. Like it was taking huge leaps periodically, or even flying.

God, that was an unsettling thought. Dean knew there was no way he could run faster than this thing could fly - if he came to open ground, with no trees to slow Tweety down, he was dead. Simple as that. He had to find a better solution than just trying to outrun it.

_Gotta find a place to make a stand, _Dean thought, ignoring his burning lungs. He was in good shape, but no-one can keep up a dead sprint for long.

_Gotta turn around and kill it before it tears out my spine._

Dean veered off to the right, more or less randomly, and skidded to a stop behind the widest, least-rotten tree he could find. He stayed there, stock still and trying not to breathe too loud, and waited.

His injured hand throbbed dully in time with the rapid heartbeat thumping in his ears, and Dean leaned against the tree and shut his eyes as a wave of dizziness washed over him. He grimaced, remembering the noxious-looking saliva dripping from the squirrel-thing's jaws, and really _really_ hoped this episode of vertigo was just a symptom of too much sprinting.

His eyes snapped open when he heard Tweety make the turn too, just a little beyond where he had. He took a long, steadying breath and listened to the leaves and twigs crunching as it started in his general direction - it was moving slowly now, each step almost tentative.

_That's right, motherfucker._ Dean smiled grimly, raising the Colt. _Now who's hunting who?_

Dean was concentrating so hard on tracking the flying thing's light footfalls through the pounding in his ears that he didn't notice the newcomer till it was almost upon them.

It thundered in the way he'd come, with heavy steps that reminded Dean of the resonating _thud_ noise he'd heard rhinos make when they ran in those Discovery Channel docos. Dead leaves fluttered down around him, jostled loose by the vibrations.

The flying thing that had been chasing him let out a panicked shriek and Dean heard it try to run. It only took a handful of frantic steps before something snarled, there was a snapping of jaws, and the sound of crunching bone. There were no more light, bird-like footsteps after that - just the sound of tearing flesh as this new nightmare tore the unfortunate smaller one in half and swallowed it in only a couple of bites.

In his hiding spot behind the tree, Dean's eyes were very wide. _What the _hell_ just happened?_

It was generally not a good sign when predators started getting eaten, he figured, and whatever had snacked on Tweety was _huge_. It had devoured its prey in seconds, and every step it took sounded like the Hulk was stomping around out there.

Dean caught his bottom lip between his teeth as he looked down at his handgun - suddenly, he _really_ wished he'd come armed for bear. He missed his nice, big shotgun. Some deer slugs would be handy, too. Maybe a nice grenade launcher…

_Or that frigging angel!_

He screamed the words inside his head as loud as he could, drowning out the rapid beating of his own heart.

_Cas, where the _hell_ are you?_

Dean froze as he heard the enormous creature sniffing the air, making a noise like a snuffling horse. He looked at the blood that had covered half his left hand and started to run down his arm, and swore under his breath. He didn't need the Discovery Channel to tell him predators were attracted to things like bleeding wounds. Suddenly, Dean thought he knew what the giant on the other side of the tree was smelling on the air.

Despite the lactic acid he could feel pooling in his legs and the increasing feeling of dizziness that made the slightly-blurring trees sway like belly dancers, Dean took off running again. He stole a look over his left shoulder as he went, and caught a glimpse of the thing that had been sniffing him out.

It was stone grey, covered in vast slabs of muscle, and had a heavy canine-shaped skull. While it resembled the general body shape of a horse on steroids, its front legs looked a little too long, and it was probably two feet taller at the shoulder than any nag he'd ever seen. Overall, it looked like the silhouette of an enormous hyena.

Dean stopped looking then and concentrated on running. He had a bad feeling that thing could swallow him whole, and being eaten alive Jonah-style was not on his list of things to do today.

As he ran, trying not to trip and fall while the forest swam and swayed around him, Dean heard the thing snarling as it started after him. The sound was deep and resonant, like rolling thunder, and its footfalls on the ground sounded like small earthquakes as it picked up speed.

Dean winced as a branch slashed at his cheek when he ran by, opening up the classic running-away-through-trees cut over his right cheekbone. He hadn't even seen it coming - his vision was closing in around the edges, narrowing into a black tunnel of waving trees and blurry ground. If the enormous thing thundering along behind had run up beside him, he wouldn't have seen it.

Dean was so dizzy and his vision so limited that he barely noticed when the forest ended and he ran out of the trees onto rockier ground, a mountain of sharp, craggy rocks looming up out of the gloom in front of him. He reached out to grab at a rocky outcrop as a fresh wave of dizziness hit him like a ton of bricks, and yelled out in surprise when he all but fell into a cave with a mouth not much bigger than he was.

As he stumbled to a stop and threw himself into a natural nook in the cave wall, Dean knew it was entirely possible something even worse was waiting in the cold and dark ahead of him. Even so, at this point, the unknown darkness was a better bet than the certain death that awaited him if he stayed outside. And maybe, just maybe, the small entrance would keep out the hulking, hungry thing snapping at his heels.

There was a sound like a small explosion from the mouth of the cave as the monster smashed itself against the side of the mountain trying to follow him in, and Dean's heart skipped a few beats. There was just a small avalanche of rocks though, falling from the ceiling and crashing to the dusty floor. Then, a growl of frustration from the thing as it backed away for another run.

"Come on. Come on. Just give up and leave me alone." Dean breathed - prayed, really - his eyes closed against the dizziness as he lay against the cold stone of the cave wall and listened.

If Tiny out there could smash open the mouth of the cave... well, that was game over. Dean didn't think he could get his legs under him to make another run for it; even sitting on the ground, they felt like jelly. And if by some miracle he _did_ get up, he was dizzy and seeing double.

_Yeah, Dean, you're not_ _going anywhere._ He sighed, and rubbed at his forehead with the back of the hand holding his gun.

The monster outside rammed the cave entrance again, not five metres from Dean, but only succeeded in bringing another small rockfall from the ceiling. It took a few steps back, sucking in deep, heavy breaths that sounded like someone working a set of blacksmith's bellows. Then it let out a frustrated, angry roar - a frigging _roar_ - that reverberated around inside the cave, shaking loose more stones as it vibrated through the living rock.

Dean waited with bated breath for what seemed like an eternity, but Tiny didn't charge the cave again. He looked out around the corner of his nook, back towards the entrance, and found it mostly blocked with freshly-fallen rocks. There was only a small gap at the very top, where anaemic yellow light filtered in through the dust still suspended in the air.

He settled back into his niche and breathed a sigh of relief. If something wanted to eat him, it would have to dig him out first. And he figured anything that was small enough to get in through that small window at the top of the cave mouth would probably want to stay the hell away from Tiny, so he was pretty safe. For the time being, anyway.

Now that he had the front of the cave scoped out, Dean turned his attention to what lay beyond him. He blinked and squinted into the darkness, but couldn't tell if the cave continued on for two metres or two hundred. There was no light, no sound - no nothing. Again, probably a good thing.

"Well, looks like I'm off the menu." Dean said to himself, and set his Colt on the floor by his right hip. There was just enough light coming in over the rockfall to let him examine his aching hand, and he leaned to his left a little to get it into the light.

"What the…?" He sucked in a long, slow breath and tried to ignore his stomach as it twisted itself into knots. This was _not_ good.

The wound wasn't a little love bite anymore. It had opened up to at least twice its original size, and the area around it was red and inflamed. The puckered edges of the wound itself were black, and dark lines of infection radiated out along the nearby veins. The little black threads had made their way to his wrist so far, and his arm was next.

"Well, that's just fucking awesome." Dean swore under his breath and stared up at the roof, trying to take some calming breaths. "Guess there's a little something extra in that little rat bastard's bite." he said, to no-one in particular. Clearly, there was venom or something in the squirrel-thing's saliva.

"So, that's how you get your food, you sneaky sonofabitch. You poison it, and wait for it to…" Dean let the sentence trail off. He swore again and chewed on his bottom lip, looking back down at his hand. Was he imagining it, or had the dark veins spread a fraction of an inch further since he last looked…?

"Cas?" Dean called, into the darkness. His voice sounded thin and strained even to his own ears. "Cas! You there?" He looked up at the roof of the cave, willing that broken frigging angel to _answer him_. There was no reply though, and he winced as he rested his injured hand palm-down on his left thigh. His whole arm ached now.

_Damn Cas and his River Tam impersonation._ Dean leaned his head wearily back against the cold stone wall. _A deadly weapon that chases bees and makes organic fucking sandwiches..._

Dean's stomach growled at that thought. _I could go for a sandwich._ Hell, he could eat the whole pig - he was _starving_. To make matters worse, his head was starting to throb with what promised to be a splitting headache. It pulsed in time with the dull throb in his hand.

"Why is it that every time me and Sam save the frigging world, one of us ends up in hell?" Dean demanded of the empty darkness. The only difference between Purgatory and Hell, as far as Dean could see, was the lack of torture. Both places were full of monsters, of one variety or another, and the colour scheme was approximately the same.

_Crowley said Purgatory was 'Hell-adjacent', so that makes sense, I guess. _The temperature was pretty similar, too, and Dean shivered and pulled his legs up against his body.

_Maybe Hell was a smidgeon colder… but, as for the torture, maybe you just haven't found the right monster here yet._ He shuddered again, but this time it was nothing to do with the cold. Then again, if that wound on his hand kept going downhill like this, he wasn't going to have to worry about what special skills and inclinations the denizens of Purgatory might have.

"Come on, Cas." He sighed, wrapping his arms around his body. His eyes suddenly felt very heavy, and they started to flutter shut.

"I'm in a cave at the bottom of the mountain." he added, as an afterthought - just in case Cas needed a hand getting around the Enochian chicken scratch on his ribs.

Vaguely, in the back of his mind, Dean knew he should try and stay awake. This drowsiness was just a side-effect of the venom, and he'd need to be awake when Cas popped back in to get him…

_Hey, maybe he'll even bring Sam._

That thought brought a little smile to his face.

_It'd be nice to see Sammy._

Dean knew, if he were here, Sam would be telling him to stay awake.

_Would probably be slapping me across the face right about now._

_Not such a bad idea, really._

His instincts screamed at him to wake up, and Dean's right hand twitched a little.

He slipped into unconsciousness before he could even finish lifting it out of his lap.

* * *

_Cas, obviously, isn't just going to leave Dean in Purgatory. Sam, either. I love the Dean/Cas dynamic, but I want more Sam, and if the writers won't give it to me then I'll do it myself ;) Stay tuned!_

_And as always - I'm a review junkie... Please support my habit and tell me what you thought. *smiles sweetly*_


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Dean hit the back wall of his cell with a thud when they tossed him back in. It knocked the breath out of him, and as he lay there on the floor he heard the metallic clicks of the lock as the the cage door shut behind him. The bare rock was cold against the skin that showed through his tattered black t-shirt and dirty jeans, but Alastair had been keeping him here for a while now, and he was almost used to it.

Home, for the moment, was a little hole in the wall in the back of an enormous rocky cavern, with an ancient-looking door of inch-thick metal bars. It was maybe 8 feet by 10 feet - not the Taj Mahal, but not the smallest cell he'd been in down here. Not by far. And at least he could _stand up_ in this one.

He wasn't standing, though, and there was a reason he'd been carried back to his cage. Alastair had decided to indulge his foot fetish today.

Dean closed his eyes and pulled his knees up to his chest, and felt the pain in his feet starting to subside. He didn't watch the flesh coalescing over the bones, hiding the white under layers of scarlet red, and then wrapping the lot in soft, pink skin. He knew the only reason it was coming back at all was because Alastair liked to peel it off, piece by piece.

"Dean."

His eyes flew open, staring at the icy black wall in front of him. That voice, with that accent, almost sounded like...

_Nah. Couldn't be._

He shook his head, trying to clear it.

"Dean!"

He pushed himself up into a sitting position, and turned slowly to look through the bars and into the shadowy cavern beyond. There was indeed someone there, glaring impatiently back in at him, but this had to be a hallucination. No way was _she_ actually standing there.

"Bela?" Dean asked, cautiously.

She _looked_ like Bela - pale, skinny (too skinny for Dean's taste, really), big brown eyes, short dark hair, that Godawful annoying British accent. But he didn't remember her being _this _pale, or quite this skinny. She looked… unhealthy. Her skin was almost the colour of white marble, like she hadn't seen the sun in months, and the bones of her lower ribcage showed clearly under the skin through a rip in her tattered blouse.

The closer Dean looked at her, the more he realised her eyes were different, too. Still a rich, liquid brown like dark chocolate, but they didn't sparkle anymore, and there were deep, dark circles under them that looked more like bruises. She looked like… well, like hell.

Bela sighed impatiently, rolling those dull, sunken eyes, and did something to the lock. A second later there was a _click_, and the door creaked open.

"So are you coming or not?" she asked, eyebrows raised.

Dean just sat there, dumbfounded and staring.

_Yeah, this has gotta be a hallucination._

"You're letting me _out_?" he asked, equal parts incredulous and sceptical. No way this was real. An ally - no, not _ally_ exactly, more like a non-enemy - turning up in his hour of need to spring him from his cage? That sort of thing just didn't happen to Winchesters.

Bela just looked at him. "Sam is definitely the smart one." she lamented, and reached in to grab Dean's arm, but he pulled away before those bony fingers could touch him. He still wasn't entirely sure who (or what) she was, or what was going on here, and he wanted to be damn sure he wasn't jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

"We don't have all day, Dean!" Bela's voice was more urgent now, and she checked over her shoulder before she turned her gaze back on Dean. "Come _on_! We've got to get out of here before they realise you're gone."

Dean sat there, still, and studied Bela with narrowed eyes while he thought it over. Either she was acting on one last shred of humanity, and genuinely trying to help him out of this coffin she'd sealed him in when she stole the Colt... or this was Alastair screwing with him. After all, what better torture is there than letting your captive see the metaphorical light at the end of the tunnel and then dragging them, kicking and screaming, back to the rack?

_Oh, fuck it._

There was no way he could pass up even a whisper of a hint of a possibility of getting out, so he gingerly hauled himself to his feet and crossed the icy floor to stand beside Bela. The rest of the enormous cave was shrouded in shadows, but as far as he could tell they were the only ones there.

"I swear, if you're screwing with me…" he started to warn her, but she cut him off with a sharp bark of bitter laughter.

"You'll what, Dean? What could you _possibly_ do to me that they haven't done already?" There was a smile on her face, but it was tight and anxiety flickered in her wide eyes as they searched the shadows around her. She didn't have to add: _and imagine what they'll do when they find out I helped you_.

Dean shrugged and gave her a single conciliatory nod. He couldn't argue with that. "So, what's the plan?" he asked, his voice low as he followed Bela towards the sickly, yellow light at the mouth of the cavern. It had to be at least 150 yards from his cell.

"I'm going to open a Gate and you're going to get out." she replied matter-of-factly, still constantly checking their surroundings. She paid particular attention when they crept past the innocuous-looking little archway on their left that led into Alastair's... playroom.

Dean deliberately didn't look in that particular room as they passed it. He felt his heart beating a little faster at just the _thought_ of getting out, and never having to go back in there again. He hadn't been able to put much effort into trying to escape, because he didn't know the first thing about how one even got _out_ of Hell.

It wasn't that they'd kept him locked up in the Pit, per se - in fact, until recently, he'd hardly spent any time behind bars at all. There had been some time in a cell on the side of a mountain, early on - three walls and a thousand-foot drop onto fume-shrouded rocks - but Dean's problem was that he didn't _see_ anyone else.

Sure, he'd been in the same room as other souls, on the rack next to theirs, and so on, but none of those situations were conducive to intelligence-gathering. He just didn't know enough to get out, so he might as well have been locked up on a mountainside somewhere.

Honestly, Dean didn't understand how Hell even _had_ mountains. The whole place was supposed to be underground, after all. He'd never actually seen the sun, granted - when he had been 'outside', there had only ever been a kind of noxious-looking cloud cover. Whether there was a sky above _that_…

"So how do you even know where this gate is?" Dean asked, keeping an eye out behind them as they neared the cave entrance.

"I've been here a while, Dean." She paused for a moment, going slightly pale. "I'm not kept under lock and key like you. I've met people, learned things."

_Even in Hell, the bitch i__s networking. _Dean smiled at that, and Bela gave him a flat look.

"And what exactly is amusing about that?" she asked. The old Bela would have torn him to shreds with a cutting, witty retort, but this wasn't the Bela he'd known and… well, just known, really.

Dean held up his hands in a placating gesture. "I was just gonna say that they should keep a better eye on you. You're basically a cat burglar - they shouldn't let you wander around, poking the cage." He motioned towards the cave entrance. "Case in point. You found a weak spot in their security, and you're stealing me."

A faint smile touched Bela's mouth, but it faded quickly. "To steal you, technically, I would have to leave with you." she said, and Dean frowned.

"You're not coming with me?" he asked, confused.

She shook her head and held up her right hand - there was a single handcuff bracelet around her wrist. It was an old-fashioned iron one like in every pirate movie you've ever seen, with a straight barrel lock on one side of a C-shaped piece of metal that looked like cast iron.

"They let me wander around because I can't get out. This keeps me from walking through the kind of gate I'm going to open, but they're not expecting me to help anyone_ else_ do it." There was a familiar, sneaky sparkle in her eye as she spoke that made Dean smile. _That _was the Bela he remembered.

It wasn't long before they reached the mouth of the cave, but Bela didn't go out through it. Instead she took a hard left, down a little tunnel Dean hadn't even realised was there and that wasn't much taller than he was, and was lit only by the ambient light from the main cavern. It was nearly dark after ten feet, but Bela walked on confidently. She obviously knew exactly where she was going.

"Here." She turned to face the wall at what seemed to be a totally random point in the tunnel, about thirty feet in, and started digging at a small crevice in the black rock. Dean looked around, and couldn't see any distinguishing features in the rocky walls at all. Just more sharp rocks interspersed with patches of ice.

He'd just opened his mouth to point that out when Bela cut him off. "When I open the door, you won't have long." she said, intent on working something free of the crack in the wall.

"Door…?"

Bela heaved an exasperated sigh. "It _is_ here, Dean, I just haven't _opened_ it yet." she said, like she was talking to a particularly slow child.

She turned her back on Dean and pulled out a small flake of flint, then made a cut in the end of her index finger. She drew a small sigil on the tunnel wall in her blood and the rock melted away around it like ice under a blowtorch, revealing a roughly circular opening that led into a new tunnel which was flooded with bright, white light that made them both shield their eyes. An honest to God white frigging light. Dean could hardly believe he was participating in such a cliché.

It was warm in that white glow, and Dean could feel his frostbitten fingers tingling as the circulation started returning. He looked down, and they were indeed turning pink. He found that quite odd, because those fingers had been all but frozen solid. The only way they ever got better was when Alastair _made_ them better so Dean could feel whatever new evil things he had planned for that day.

He ran the defrosted fingers of his right hand along the stone wall beside him, and it was cool and smooth to the touch. The sensation brought a smile to Dean's face - it was nice to feel something that wasn't red hot, or freezing cold, or razor sharp.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Bela asked urgently, nodding towards the doorway with raised eyebrows.

"Yeah, I know, I don't have long. This just isn't what I expected the other side of a Devil's Gate to look like." Dean caught his bottom lip between his teeth.

"You thought it would be an actual _gate_? Could you imagine trying to guard an actual _bars-and-hinges gate_?" She rolled her eyes. "There are fixed openings up on Earth, but to get out from this side you pretty much have to make your own."

"So you can just make one of these anywhere?"

She stared at him. "I can explain the details to you, Dean, or you could just, you know,_ go_!"

Right. Yes. He should go.

"Well, Carol Anne, time to go into the light." he said, taking a deep breath. Bela looked at him like she thought he might be crazy, but Dean ignored it. He was used to people thinking he was insane - occupational hazard when you go around hunting monsters. And it wasn't his fault she didn't get the reference.

_"Dean?"_

He was about to step through the opening and go into the light when Sam's disembodied voice floated down the tunnel towards him, seemingly out of nowhere. Dean immediately stopped and looked around, confused.

Bela was still standing there, arms crossed, watching him impatiently and a little sadly. She didn't react like she'd heard anything, and there was no-one else in the tunnel with them. So, why the hell was he hearing Sam's voice?

_Maybe you're dead, and this is your path to the other side._

Dean dismissed that thought out of hand. He'd seen behind the curtain when he'd been Death for a day, and there was no white light involved. Plus, he was reasonably sure he wasn't getting out of this living nightmare that easily.

He called Bela some impolite names under his breath and rested his forehead against the tunnel wall. Now he was pretty sure - this just had to be an illusion. Alastair messing with his head, trying to make him think freedom - and Sam - were close. Dean could hear Alastair's nasal voice, as if he was standing right there: "You can't torture someone who has nothing left to lose."

_Probably something he learned from fucking Lucifer._

_"Dean!"_

But it sounded so_ real… _Dean chewed on his bottom lip, his mind grinding its gears as he tried to work out what the hell was going on.

Well, maybe it wasn't an illusion. Maybe he was just finally going insane.

_Come on, Dean, it had to happen eventually…_ That thought didn't scare him nearly as much as it probably should have.

_"Dean! Wake up!"_

'Wake up'…? Now he was thoroughly confused.

Dean was still standing there in the warm, white light like a stunned mullet when his left shoulder started to burn.

He let out a cry of surprise and pain and ripped at his tattered t-shirt, tearing it away from his burning skin. There were no flames, no smoke, no nothing - just a red, blistering handprint at the very top of his upper arm, like someone was trying to grab him with an invisible branding iron. The skin actually reddened and bubbled as he watched, like cheese under a grill.

Even as Dean looked on, shocked, a ghostly image of a hand appeared over the burn. It was attached to a disembodied arm and flickered in and out, like he'd seen spirits do, but it _felt_ fucking real enough. He could feel real fingers digging into his arm, burning deeper…

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Sam knelt in front of Dean, shaking him by the shoulder. Fever heat radiated off him in waves, but he was deathly pale and covered in a sheen of sweat.

Dean's eyes fluttered and he moaned something unintelligible as he tried to pull away, but he couldn't move his arm. Or most of the left side of his body, for that matter. He tried to hit out at whatever was grabbing at him, but only succeeded in dropping his inflamed, incredibly tender left hand onto the floor of the cave and he all but screamed in pain as his entire arm exploded into flaming agony.

"Jesus, Dean, stay still!"

Dean froze, and it took him a second to realise what was happening.

_Sammy!_

He tried to say it out loud, but he couldn't make his mouth work.

Sam sucked in a sharp breath and let go of Dean's shoulder when he saw his hand. It was swollen, nearly twice its usual size, and there was an ugly, blackened wound that looked for all the world like gangrene on the outside edge, under the little finger. Thin, black threads of infection covered the hand like a spider web, and extended up under the eldest Winchester's jacket.

Dean heard Sam swear under his breath and felt him tugging at his jacket, pulling the sleeve up to follow the black lines. It hurt, and he protested - weakly - but Sam ignored him.

Through his half-open eyes, Dean thought he looked… well, scared. And even in his half-conscious state, that sent a chill down Dean's spine that had nothing to do with the fever.

Sam abruptly let go of the sleeve, and yanked Dean's collar down instead. He found exactly what he expected - the infection snaked its way right up Dean's arm and was weaving a lattice across his chest and down his side, poisoning him. Under his clothes, Dean's whole left arm and half his torso was a mass of red, fever-hot infection, and it hurt to touch. He shrank back, trying to get away from even the light pressure of Sam's fingers.

"Cas, what the hell is this?" Sam turned to look over his shoulder. Dean's vision was blurry, and kind of dim, but if he squinted he thought he could see a beige-ish, trenchcoat-type shape hovering behind his little brother…

"We have to get him out of here." Cas' voice came out of the darkness behind Sam. He sounded tense, but much calmer than he had any right to be in a dimension full of monsters.

"So let's go!" Sam demanded, getting to his feet. The sudden movement made Dean dizzy again, and everything started spinning. He closed his eyes again as a wave of nausea rolled over him.

_Damn that poisonous fucking rodent…_

It took Dean a minute to collect himself and tune back into the conversation going on in front of him.

"-not that simple, Sam. Angels are not supposed to _be_ in Purgatory." Cas was telling Sam, a terse and weary tone to his voice.

"Right - the Leviathans would eat the whole aquarium. I know. So why can't you get _out_?" Sam demanded, obviously exasperated.

"I can get out just fine. It's getting _Dean_ out that's the problem." Cas sounded like he didn't like what was coming next. Dean's face creased into a frown - that was the tone of voice the angel usually used when he was about to tell someone they needed to sacrifice themselves for the greater good.

"I'm powerless here, Sam. My Father thought angels wouldn't linger in Purgatory if we couldn't defend ourselves, so all I _can_ do is get out. I can't take you or Dean with me without opening a physical gate back to Earth, and I can't do _that _without the blood of a Purgatory native."

Sam was silent for a long moment. When he eventually spoke, the heat was gone from his voice. "And without your mojo you can't exactly go out there and find a donor." He could obviously see where this was going.

Dean saw it too, and he wished he didn't.

_Cas needs your baby brother the hunter to go out into that death-trap of a forest and bleed something, because without his powers he's basically a baby in a fucking trenchcoat._

If he could've, Dean would have gotten up off the floor and hit both of them. Sam for diving into this without considering whether he'd live through it, and Cas for letting him.

"How much do you need?" Sam asked, voice tight. There was a metallic clicking noise as he worked the slide on his Taurus, checking the chamber. Then a swoosh sound and the hum of a blade as it cleared its sheath.

Cas sighed. "I wish you'd considered this before you made me bring you back here. Dean isn't going to be happy."

_You're damn right I'm not happy!_

"Sam." Dean said, trying to sound big-brotherly and authoritative. It came out as more of a croaky whisper.

"We've been through this - I can't leave Dean. I was coming anyway." Sam told the angel, simply. "Now, how much do you need?" he repeated, staring at Cas. Then he reached out and took something the angel handed him - it was shiny, and it fit in the palm of his hand. A metal container that looked like a flask.

"Sam!" Dean tried again, and although the effort made his head swim, it sounded better than his last attempt. He struggled to sit up a little as Sam knelt in front of him, and forced his eyes open.

"Don't." he breathed. "Place'll kill you."

Sam chewed on his bottom lip. "Maybe so, but I won't leave you here to die, Dean. I can't." he said, and Dean sighed and closed his eyes. He was fighting a losing battle, and he knew it. All too well.

"You wouldn't leave me, and I'm not going to leave you." Sam went on, tucking the small metal flask into one of his jacket pockets. Dean tried to reach out and grab his arm, but the effort was too much. His tunnel-vision closed in, fading to total blackness, and he passed out.

* * *

_Terribly sorry about how it took me the whole Hellatus to update..._

_ Doing it now, though, because I figure I should finish it before the show does it for me and makes the whole thing redundant. ;)_


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Dean was wrenched back into consciousness by a stinging pain in his left hand.

He pulled it back with a grunt, and opened his eyes to find Sam sitting beside him. It was daylight, and they were in Rufus' cabin - Dean was laid out on the couch, under a heavy old blanket, and Sam was perched on the edge of the coffee table. There was a small bowl of warm water and disinfectant at his side, and he'd been cleaning the bite on Dean's left hand.

Dean just looked at him for a moment, blinking a few times. Sam looked _exhausted_. His face was streaked with dirt, marked with rivulets of dried blood from wounds over his right eye and cheekbone. It looked like something with claws had slashed at him - there were other small slashes on his left cheek and even three long rips in the dirty grey shirt he was wearing.

"We back?" Dean asked, hesitantly.

"We're back." Sam confirmed, smiling a little. He took the injured hand back, and Dean winced as he wiped at the bite wound. "How are you feeling?"

"You're an idiot." Dean told him, by way of reply.

"What?" Sam looked up in surprise.

"What were you _thinking_, Sam? Jumping into Purgatory after me?" he demanded, pushing himself up into a sitting position. His arm hurt, but he ignored it.

Sam started to bite back, but stopped himself. He looked back down at Dean's wounded hand, chewing on his bottom lip a little. "You _disappeared_, Dean. I had no idea where you went - for all I knew, you got vaporised when you ganked Dick." he said quietly, and paused to glance up at his big brother as he continued dabbing at the bite wound.

"I thought you were dead." The look only lasted a second, but Dean didn't miss the gleam of tears welling up in Sam's eyes. "Cas came to me about two minutes after I got to the lab and told me you were stuck in Purgatory. He said he couldn't bring you back out by himself, so I said I'd go in with him."

"And you didn't ask _why_?" Dean asked, and swore under his breath as Sam pressed harder at his wound. He stopped cleaning then, and set the cloth down on the table.

"No, I didn't, Dean. I couldn't leave you there." Sam reiterated, sounding tense. "In case you haven't noticed, we're kind of all we've got now."

Dean wanted to tell Sam off for being stupid enough to put himself in that middle of a deadly situation like that. He wanted to yell a little and tell him he should know better by now - that they needed to stop sacrificing themselves for the other, because one day they wouldn't come back. But he didn't, because deep down, Dean knew he'd do exactly the same thing.

"I know." Dean admitted, with a sigh. If it had been the other way around, and Cas had come to him after Sam disappeared, he knew he couldn't have left his baby brother in that alternate-dimensional meat-grinder any more than he could stop breathing.

"Thanks, Sammy. You saved my ass." he added, and Sam smiled.

"You're damn right I did." he agreed, and Dean couldn't help but smile too as he watched Sam dress the bite with clean, white gauze and bandages. It throbbed, and was still red and inflamed, but the black veins were almost gone and the wound itself was shrinking.

"So, what, Cas healed me?" Dean asked, looking back up at Sam.

"Didn't have to. He used the Purgatory blood to open a doorway, kind of like the one he opened in Crowley's basement, and we walked through it into the woods by the cabin. As soon as we got here, the black veiny-ness started disappearing and your fever died down." Sam finished wrapping the hand, and taped the end of the bandage down. He didn't mention how Dean's body almsot cooked itself with fever, or the way he was wheezing and struggling for every shallow breath.

"So what the hell did this to you anyway?" he asked, letting Dean take his hand back.

"Little rat bastard squirrel-looking thing bit me." Dean replied, and Sam looked at him sceptically.

"A squirrel." he said, trying not to let the corners of his mouth turn up in a smile.

"Yes, Sam, a little monster about the size of a squirrel with frigging poison saliva took a chunk out of me." Dean replied, eyes narrowed. He didn't see what was funny.

"I got the blood from something that looked like a big dog, and I had to empty my clip into it before I could get close enough. But this squirrel of yours was obviously in a league of its own." Sam still looked far too amused for Dean's taste.

"Yeah, and you still look like you went ten rounds with Edward Scissorhands. Be glad Rover was_ all_ you found, smartass." He settled back down onto the couch with a sigh, and told Sam the horror story about the cougar-thing he shot and the other two that chased him.

When he was done, Sam wasn't smiling anymore - he actually looked a little pale.

"And while I was passed out in that cave, I had the weirdest fever dream, man." Dean went on.

"Oh?" Sam raised his eyebrows.

Dean paused for a second to consider whether he wanted to tell this story at all. There was no way he was going to give Sam any details about Hell itself, but the rest of it... Dean was surprised to find he kind of _wanted_ to talk about the other stuff.

"Bela." he said simply. "She was busting me out of the Pit when someone grabbed my shoulder." He gave Sam a meaningful look, and he suddenly sat up a little straighter.

"You remember?" he asked, eyes wide.

"Do I remember Cas 'gripping me tight'?" Dean sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. "I dunno, Sammy. I'm not sure if it's what actually happened or what I _think_ happened."

"When we found you, you were muttering something about 'gates' and 'light' and stuff. You could ask Cas how it went down." he offered.

"You think I haven't tried that? He doesn't want to tell me." Dean sighed. And, to be honest, he wasn't sure he wanted to know what it was like to be ridden out of Hell by an angel.

"So, how'd she look?" Sam asked, after a pause.

"Not good." Dean replied. He shivered a little as he remembered Bela, gaunt and pale and… haunted. That image right there was probably good for a few nightmares all on its own.

They sat in silence for a long moment before Dean spoke again.

"So where's Cas?" he asked, and Sam shrugged.

"Don't know. He was going to check on the state of the Leviathans."

"I'm _starving_." Dean groaned. "We got anything to eat around here?"

Sam didn't answer - he just got up and retrieved a couple of plates from the fridge, and set them on the table.

"Cas' solidarity sandwiches? Seriously?" Dean asked, quirking an eyebrow at his little brother.

"He dropped them off before he went on his fact-finding mission." Sam peeled back the cling wrap on the plates, and offered one to Dean.

"You know, I'd kill for a steak." Dean said hopefully, and Sam chuckled.

"What, you're going to eat the beef that's been pumped full of the Leviathans' additives?" He raised his eyebrows, and Dean groaned again, louder.

"That broken angel owes me an additive-free _cow_, Sam." he complained, but took half a sandwich in his right hand. It was better than nothing. "He left me alone in fucking _Purgatory_!" he growled.

"Yeah, about that - he wanted me to tell you he was sorry for leaving you." Sam said, and Dean sniffed derisively.

"He'd better be. I don't care if he's powerless there or not, that was _not cool_." He tore off a third of the sandwich in one bite and chewed sullenly.

"You remember that, huh?" Sam asked, looking surprised.

"Mm-hmm." Dean nodded, still chewing. _Gotta admit, that angel makes good sandwiches._

"I didn't just abandon you, Dean." A familiar, gravelly voice came from behind him. Dean craned his neck to look, and found Cas standing in their little kitchen. He looked dishevelled, as always, but no worse than usual. He certainly wasn't covered in blood and dirt like the Winchester boys.

_But then again, he wasn't stuck in Purgatory, getting chased by monsters._

"So what would _you_ call it?" Dean asked, trying to keep his voice level.

"Do you think I'd just leave you standing alone, in Purgatory, with all those hungry souls?" Cas looked genuinely hurt, and Dean sighed. Somehow, he always managed to make Dean feel bad about having a go at him.

"No - no, of course not." he assured the angel, who still looked crestfallen.

"You weren't even supposed to be there. Crowley wanted _me_ to get sucked into Purgatory with the Leviathan's soul -" Cas went on, but Dean held up a hand to stop him.

"Wait. _Crowley?_"

"Yeah. We're thinking that's why Crowley pushed so hard for Cas to get involved." Sam said. Dean just stared at him, utterly confused. Clearly, he'd missed something.

"Crowley had to know that Dick would suck the souls around him into Purgatory when he went - like a ship sucking you down when it sinks." Sam explained. "He gets Cas out of his way, and then he's free to expand his operation."

"Expand his operation…?" Dean didn't like where this was going. Not one bit.

Cas and Sam looked at each other, and Sam grimaced.

"Crowley isn't happy with Hell staying in Hell, Dean. He wants Earth and Heaven as well."

* * *

_Cue: Season Eight!_

_You know the drill. Let me know what you thought!  
(I, personally, am just glad it's DONE...! This one didn't want to give me an ending. I'm not sure it has, even now. But this is where it's finishing, so tough cookies. :p)_


End file.
